


Out From Under

by Brigantine



Category: Men With Guns (1997 Skogland), due South
Genre: Angst, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:25:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigantine/pseuds/Brigantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mountie on the Bounty" takes a sharp left turn at the very beginning.  Nearly a year later, Fraser follows Ray down the rabbit hole.</p><p>Written for the DS Flashfiction "Broken" challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out From Under

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this is the result of the collision of two "Gee, I wonder..." moments, and then me running around like a loony, picking up the pieces and trying to glue them together into something recognizable. Mind you, character dialog from the film is exactly that. Keep in mind that "Men With Guns" is not a happy film.
> 
> I originally posted this in two parts because of its length, but I think AO3 will let me post it whole. \o/!

"Your heart is where your duty lies, son. Your head is just along to help with the driving."

~~~~~~~~~~ Sergeant Robert Fraser, RCMP

************************

Friday morning:

Richie, nervous and looking like he's been dragged through a knothole backwards, he finds Mamet smoking a cigarette on the front steps of Rob's place, and he tells him that Eddie wants to buy a couple of guns. Mamet asks Richie exactly what he means, 'cause no way he's hunting down a dealer without knowing the fuck why. When Richie explains, in little fits and starts, that last night he was trying to collect some back pay for Barry (and there's a sonofabitch, Mamet thinks, why can't he get his own damn cash?), the manager at the Pink Palace sent him and Eddie out to a farm house on Concession Road, and they got the shit beat out of 'em by some goons, that's when the light goes on and Mamet thinks,

Burke. Horace fuckin' Burke. 'Cause who owns the Pink Palace strip club, huh?

Mamet is better at math than pretty much everybody expects him to be.

Any of the local dealers he might have asked before Hendrickson went down are either scooped up or scattered, so Mamet starts with Rob, who's the kind of guy who tends to be a step ahead. Mamet respects that in a man. Rob, he knows Eddie and Richie from way back. Eddie, Rob says, will probably be the death of Richie some day.

Mamet's got no illusions that if he can bring down Horace Burke that'll fix the world. Without Horace Burke and his weird nephew Mickey Toronto will not be free of bad people, or of illegal drugs, or sadness, or poverty, or rain, and parents will not be any better able to tuck their kids in at night and know they're safe.

But if he can keep enough of himself intact to nail Burke before he goes, that would be great.

Now Becker, he wants Burke, oh yes he does.

Mamet chuckles to himself, shakes a few Smarties into his mouth and rounds the corner past Mrs. Lewis's grocery store. Drug Squad Detective D. R. Becker. Becker the pecker.

Miss Bella, relaxed in the modest splendor of her daytime doorway on Allen street, says "Good Morning, Sweetie," and pockets the dollar he gives her.

Miss Bella always calls him Sweetie. He wonders if she still would, if she knew.

Becker the pecker, Becker pecker, Beckerpecker. Runs an addict named Kevin, rides him for information. But there are some things, if you want it done right you got to do it yourself.

Take care of Burke, finish the job. Then he can quit. He should never have handed back that 9 mil. to the fucking DEA. Assholes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first flight Fraser can catch is late in the morning on Friday. He spends most of the hour and a half staring stonily down at the green landscape passing between Chicago and Toronto and wondering whether the plea, "Why don't you listen to me?" will prove the final of Ray's words to him. He wonders whether the question will haunt him down all the long years to a grave he is not as set against as he was less than a year ago.

He admonishes himself that this is defeatist and melodramatic. He'll be of no use to Ray if he persists in wallowing in self-pity.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mamet walks into the Lakeview Lunch. Easy Gary's breakfast smells good. Toast, eggs, bacon, potatoes. Mamet's pretty sure he's eaten recently, but he can't remember exactly when.

"I don't do that anymore," Easy Gary says.

"What?"

"Sell guns. Guns, guns."

"Fine."

"Hey. You can do me a favor, though."

Which means, Yes.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The flight attendants take excellent care of Fraser. He mostly wishes they'd leave him alone. It's an hour and a half for heaven's sake, he doesn't need an extra blanket and an extra pillow. Or champagne. When did they start offering champagne on flights between Chicago and Toronto? God, he just needs to think. He needs to prepare. He's had nearly a year. He still doesn't feel ready.

Then there's baggage claim, and Diefenbaker, who thankfully needn't languish in Customs this time. He's been back and forth across the border twice in the last couple of years. He's practically got his own passport.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey! What kinda skeezy neighborhood you takin' us into?"

"Rob put me onto this guy."

"Rob? I don't trust that fuckin' cocksucker."

"Just fuckin' stay calm, man."

"Calm? I am fuckin' calm, man! This was my idea in the first place!"

If Eddie'd just shut up and think about it for a second, Eddie would realize that none of this was his _idea._ This was his knee-jerk _reaction_ to being made to feel small and vulnerable.

Eddie's got this thing he does, he makes demands of everybody, but he doesn't want to trust anybody to do what he's demanding. He doesn't want to think about what it takes, what it'll cost, he just wants what he wants at the moment that he's shouting for it. Eddie needs to get hold of himself.

Not, Mamet admits, that he's one to talk.

"Hey, you ever try to kill yourself, man?" Easy Gary wonders. "Just thought about it?"

The solid heft of the Beretta feels familiar, the way the grip snugs into the palm of Mamet's hand, right there where his lifeline crosses it. That slide and click of the magazine going in, that's sweet. Fifteen shots. "Not seriously," Mamet says.

Eddie's in here shopping for a gun like he's shopping for a scary Halloween mask. Eddie clearly does not fully comprehend what a gun is _for._

"Things are not as clear for me now," Easy Gary says, "as they used to be, as they once were."

Outside, Eddie poses in front of a mirrored window on a door, checks out the .357 revolver tucked into the front of his trousers. Thinks he looks like a gunslinger from a Western film. Mamet figures Eddie'll probably end up shooting his dick off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's mid-afternoon when Fraser and Diefenbaker report to D.C.I. Reickhart at RCMP headquarters in Toronto, or what Ray once referred to as "the mother ship."

Reickhart apologizes to Fraser that they've so far been unsuccessful in their pursuit of Detective Kowalski. He's only got two men to spare for the search as there are, as one might imagine, other cases Reickhart must contend with.

The alias Ray used during his time in the dangerous bosom of Jason Hendrickson was Alec Tennant, but Reickhart assumes he's dropped that and chosen a new one since Hendrickson was taken into custody.

"Jesus," Reickhart says, "if the Yanks don't want him back, we'll take him!"

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Reickhart is a short, stocky man with thinning hair he's got the good sense to cut short. He perches on the edge of his desk and regards Fraser with a frustrated huff. "We get a word of him, a tease, but before we can get there to pick him up he's melted back into the city like a chameleon into Madagascar. Granted, my officers are new on the job, but they're good lads."

Fraser rubs behind his ear. "Sir, for how long have they been hunting him?"

"Hunting?" Reickhart twitches a smile at the term. "Nearly six weeks. I find I owe your Lieutenant Welsh something of an apology. I've been harboring some fairly uncomplimentary thoughts regarding his apparent lack of concern for one of his own."

"Six? But we didn't know, we had no idea…" Over a month before DEA Agent Grant decided that it might be a good idea to let Ray's commanding officer in Chicago know he was missing in action. Six weeks ago Ray could have, should have been home safe, but after he had given them what they needed to make their case, the DEA agents in charge of him just couldn't be bothered.

"... but we can't very well go about asking every snitch and stoolie if they've news of a lost under cover detective. He'd be dead in days. He's just..." D. C. I. Reickhart makes a dissipating gesture with his hands. "The hell of it is, Constable, that the DEA knew he wasn't right in the head, yet they left him adrift anyway."

"Not right in the--Sir?" It's been over nine months. So much has happened to Ray without him.

"Grant said nothing about _that_ to Lieutenant Welsh? Christ, one hand not bothering to tell the other."

Fraser shakes his head, fighting the dread building in his belly.

"Hendrickson's a suspicious sort of man, naturally," Reickhart explains. "His reach never could have extended as far as it did, had he been otherwise. About three months in there came a time when Detective Kowalski found it necessary to put up or shut up, as it were. In the beginning, he believed he might get by dipping and dabbing, maybe a little Hong Yen, and let it go at that--"

"Hong Yen? Could you explain?" Fraser catches himself rubbing at his eyebrow again, and forces himself to stop.

"Heroin, Constable. In pill form. It's not especially popular amongst users, as it doesn't give that immediate rush that most of them are after. The more successful Kowalski became, however, the more often he found himself in Hendrickson's company, and well, there you are."

The urge to run through the streets of Toronto screaming Ray's name is nearly overwhelming. Keep it together, son. Fraser half expects to find his father peering at him past Reickhart's shoulder. He stands up very straight, wills his heart rate to slow, and fiddles with his hat.

"Look," Reickhart says meaningfully. "We know he's damaged himself in the line of duty, the DEA knows it, and they know that we know."

"Which means..." Fraser thinks he understands, but he wants to hear the Detective Chief Inspector say it.

"They've abandoned their man out there, half-addled and alone, and there's no excuse for that. You find your friend and you bring him home, Constable. Meg and I will worry about the rest of it."

"Meg, sir?"

Reickhart grins. "Inspector Thatcher, Constable. Don't underestimate your c.o. She didn't get where she is just because she's got great gams."

Fraser blushes and stutters, blotting out a particular moment atop the roof of a moving train. "I... certainly, Sir."

Reickhart sends Fraser downstairs, where he is given loan of a vehicle. He chooses an older model Bronco because it's common, and because Diefenbaker finds the name whimsical, but mostly because at some point he and Dief might need to sleep in it. He finds a modest boarding house near the intersections of Dupont and Saint James. It's clean, it allows dogs, and Diefenbaker likes the smell of the elderly gentleman who runs it. Dupont and Saint James, D.C.I. Reickhart informed Fraser, is where twice his men have caught a glimpse of the chameleon Ray has become.

Fraser amends his thought. Ray is by nature an adaptable person. He has worked as an under cover officer for many years, and that is no task for fools, nor the faint of heart. He once teased Fraser for using the word "germane" in the middle of a gunfight in a cemetery, only hours later to smile and murmur "prudent" to himself, as though tucking the word and its context away for later use, right there beside "germane." Ray has no idea, Fraser thinks, how proud he is of him, so proud of his partner's quicksilver mind. Fraser has never told him.

Ray will become whatever he feels he needs to be; a disturbing thought, under the circumstances. In the last nine and a half months Ray has made Toronto his own. He reckons and runs in this city far more efficiently than Fraser does. All that Fraser has to offer are his own determination, what wits he's brought with him, and Diefenbaker at his side. Well, and a map that he brought from the consulate. He's nearly got it memorized.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Late Friday afternoon:

Eddie and Richie have driven out to an open field to practice using their shiny new guns. They whoop and jump around like a couple of kids whenever one of them manages to shoot a hole in an old tin can.

The thing is, Eddie just does not get when to _stop._

The thing is, Richie's a decent guy, but he's too attached to Eddie by half. Mamet'd warn him about that, but how the hell does he explain?

Mamet sits on the roof of Richie's car, turning the barrel of his new Beretta into a makeshift crack pipe. He knew he was saving that little rock for something. It's awkward, but it's an amusing experiment.

And the thing is, neither Richie nor Eddie think to wonder why Mamet doesn't bother with target practice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dief has been fidgety and distracted all afternoon, and as they descend the front steps of the boarding house onto the sidewalk Fraser frowns and agrees, "Yes. I too sense that it's getting very late."

Stella has given Fraser a photograph of Ray to help him in his search. In the photo Ray is some years younger, though his appearance has hardly altered since. He grins happily, astride a large, dark blue motorcycle, one booted foot planted firmly on the ground. Stella peers over his shoulder, her blonde hair bright in the sun, her smile wide and content. Ray's hands rest atop Stella's as she clasps his waist. Fraser pulls the photograph from his jacket pocket, politely accosts the nearest stranger, and begins the taxing process of asking questions.

He hasn't brought either uniform with him. The Stetson makes him stand out quite enough. He nearly left it behind, but he felt peculiar going hunting without it. In his knapsack up in their room are a couple of shirts, a sweater, and a change of under wear. And his service revolver. He can't bring himself to carry it on his person.

Diefenbaker proves both lure and intercessor. Women seem willing enough to talk to Fraser; too willing in some cases, and Fraser wishes fervently that they would stop looking at him, and look at Ray. Regardless, strangers of both genders seem more inclined to relax their natural guardedness in response to Diefenbaker cavorting about the sidewalk.

Standing on the raised porch of Marcus and Sons Shoe Repair Fraser, staring out into the dying day over rivers of noisy traffic and unfamiliar faces tramping past, weary and overwhelmed by the sheer mass and cacophony of the city, kneels on the concrete and takes Dief's head between his hands. "I owe you an apology," he says. "I'm sorry I almost left you in Chicago."

The wolf has the good grace not to say, "I told you so."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the night comes on and darkens, Eddie and Richie drive back out to the farmhouse where those goons beat them up. Mamet's just along for the ride. Or whatever he finds out there.

"We're just gonna scare 'em, right?" Richie insists. "We're just gonna scare 'em."

Mamet feels weird riding in the back of the car. Usually the wolf rides in the back. Don't go there, buddy. Do not go there.

When they get to the farm he pops a couple of his happy pills. They make him feel better when the shakes hit, when his stomach starts to clench up. When he starts to remember.

Eddie and Richie kill four people while Mamet's outside dancing an abstract little jig in the circle beam from the Camaro's headlights. His shadow looks like a scarecrow puppet.

When the shooting's over Eddie's too distracted by the coke they find to think of putting the dog they've mortally wounded out of its misery. Mamet offers the poor animal the simple mercy of a bullet to the brain. That's all it takes to stop the pain.

Dead guy on the staircase looks an awful lot like the manager at the Pink Palace.

Helluva mess you got here, Eddie.

It's a long, dark, quiet ride back to Eddie's place. Richie can barely drive, he's shaking so bad.

Richie wants to call the police. He's learned what a gun is for, and he doesn't like it.

"What happened happened man, but who fired first?"

Yeah, who went in there yelling and waving a gun around, Eddie? The word you're looking for is "consequences."

Eddie still hasn't figured it out, and really, with that much blood on his clothes, he should catch a clue.

"They underestimated the jungle," Mamet comments.

Eddie is far too busy shouting to pay attention.

Anyway, it wasn't Cassandra's job to be believed.

Six hundred thousand to a million, that's what Mamet estimates the coke is worth. Eddie doesn't think to ask him how he knows that. Probably all he can hear is "million."

It's good stuff at least, and it doesn't kill Mamet when it hits the other shit in his bloodstream. A little more time, that's all he needs.

They start selling the stuff off at the nearest yuppie club, and this, Mamet thinks, as he changes drugs for dollars in the men's room, this is like lighting up a big neon sign for Horace Burke to see.

Eddie snorts too much of their stolen merchandise, fails to get it up for a blow job in the men's room, and ends up in a screaming fist fight with some random idiot. Mamet wonders whether maybe most of the time Richie just goes along with Eddie to get him to shut up, 'cause Jesus, the guy is a walking headache.

Richie's friend Kevin Janey starts asking questions, making offers.

Kevin snitches for Becker the Pecker which, Mamet thinks, could make things interesting.

"Time to go," he tells Richie 'cause, yeah, it is. He waits by the car, with the coke and the cash, while Eddie and Richie mess with Kevin. They bring along a girl for each of the three of them, as though Mamet had ever asked for one.

People assume so much. A guy for instance might assume that because his friend pops him one in the jaw that means his friend hates him and doesn't want to be his friend anymore. Or maybe more than his best friend. Or a guy might assume that having popped his best friend a solid one in the jaw, that's a good time to leave, when really he shoulda stayed put, 'cause win or lose he's got some words his best friend deserves to hear. Give him an honest chance for refusal, at least.

This whole deal he's in could very well be one huge clusterfuck, the tragic ass-end of an operation he never shoulda let himself get talked into.

Goddamn drugs are wearing off.

Eddie and Richie, Mamet thinks, keep forgetting what it was they thought they wanted when they started out the night. At least he knows what he can't have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday proves a long evening, and a cold night before Diefenbaker and Fraser finally decide that a square area comprising thirty-seven blocks south down the slope of Saint James and forty-one blocks west on Carson and thirty-seven blocks back north up Hanover, then forty-one blocks east on Dupont to get back to the boarding house will have to suffice for the night. Fraser uses the mobile phone Reickhart loaned him to call the chief inspector's answering machine, and he leaves a brief report.

Now, it's time for a late supper and some sleep, though Fraser doesn't.

Over the past months of waiting for word of Ray, Fraser's had plenty of time for self recriminations, and he ought to have moved past that, but it's a habit now, a rut worn into his mind, and as Diefenbaker makes himself comfortable on the rug nearby, Fraser lies awake on the bed and stares up into the darkness.

 _"Hello, am I the only one here who doesn't know who Nautilus is?"_

 _"Yes, it would appear so, Ray."_

 _"Partners means sharing, y'ever hear that, Fraser?"_

 _"Yes, I understand that. Could we deal with it later?"_

But they never have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eddie and Richie and a couple of the girls and about a half dozen people who seem to have just materialized like drunken ghouls in Eddie's and Richie's apartment, they're all celebrating Eddie and Richie's good luck -- that is, the drugs and the money, as though no one's gonna come looking for it, while Mamet counts the receipts from the sale at the club and he surreptitiously -- oh, that's a good word, he'd love that word... he would. Don't go down that road, man. The guy in the red suit ain't Saint Nick, and he does not need you to be good for him.

Mamet gives away a big chunk of cash to the pretty girl in the shiny green tank top, 'cause Richie and Eddie likely won't have a chance to spend it, and what the hell's Mamet gonna do with it?

Her name is Crystal. She's nice.

"Just keep that. Just put it away." He wishes he could hide pieces of himself away somewhere, some place safe where he could collect himself later, 'cause he's kind of washing away, here, and the scary thing is that he mostly doesn't mind.

While Richie is busy in the bathroom, fucking Nice Crystal in the green tank top, and Eddie's bidding farewell to a few more brain cells, waving goodbye through his nose, Mamet finds Richie's old baseball bat and starts in on dismantling the apartment.

Just seems like somebody ought to. He starts with the kitchen.

Cocaine wires him, and it always feels good while it's happening, but he doesn't care much for the afterward part.

That seems to be true about a lot of things.

The exercise and his focus on the job at hand quiet something howling in the middle of his head. Just one of the ways to keep from wishing things were different.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fraser and Diefenbaker are out onto Saint James by 06:30 Saturday morning. There's a small diner three blocks down and two blocks east onto Saint Andrews street. Fraser and Diefenbaker are the only patrons at 6:38, so the owner lets Diefenbaker curl up under Fraser's table in the back. Fraser shows the waitress Ray's photo, and she shakes her head and passes it through the kitchen window to the owner at the grill, who regards it with a thoughtful frown, then offers his apologies.

As the city wakes Fraser steps into each shop or cafe that has opened, marking for the return trip the ones still closed at this early hour. Dief isn't allowed in most of the eating establishments, but he runs the floors of all the shops that will let him, quickly searching out the slightest possibility of Ray's past presence. It's nine blocks down East Gordon when the proprietor of a small grocery says, "Oh yes, he's new in the neighborhood," and just about here Dief yelps and begins frantically snuffling throughout the shop.

"He likes sweets," the owner tells Fraser. "Unless he's buying produce somewhere else, and mind you there aren't too many of us around here, he's got rather poor eating habits. It's no wonder he's so thin." She whispers conspiratorially, "Sometimes I put an apple in the bag, on the off chance he'll eat it when he gets home."

"I'm sure he appreciates that, ma'am." Thin, she said. Ray's always been very slender, but is she saying that he's lost weight, that he's… _fading_ is the word that comes to mind, and Fraser rejects it, shoves it to the back of his head, into the dark.

Dief is woofing at him from the doorway. They need to move. Move now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Late in the morning Rob telephones, wants to know if Mamet is there, if he's okay.

From his nest on Eddie's bed Mamet watches Eddie, out on the couch. He's grunting Yes, Yes into the telephone, and then he jerks and pales and starts to panic.

Easy Gary has been picked up by the cops.

Matter of time. Easy Gary was not a careful person. Careful people don't let their five-year-old son carry around a .357. They just don't.

So Eddie's gonna meet with Kevin, 'cause Eddie is suddenly in a hurry to cash out and leave town. Funny how the shit hits the fan like this, isn't it Eddie?

Mamet wonders how long it'll take for Kevin and his daddy Becker to figure out the slaughter on Concession Road last night was them. It's not like no one was gonna notice.

Richie leaves what's left of the apartment to go to a meeting. He's not fooling anybody. Lucy. That's her name, Lucy, and she used to love Richie, until it got too hard.

"Wish I had a meeting," Mamet says wistfully. He doesn't know why. He never liked meetings before. Maybe he just misses having someone who needs him to be there. He wonders if he ever actually was needed there, he often didn't seem to be really necessary.

Mamet considers himself far too coherent this morning.

Crystal in the green tank top is going to the zoo today, with her son. Mamet's glad he gave her the money. Her boy's name is Ben. Mamet wonders if this Ben's got blue eyes, the kind that look grey when the light hits 'em from the side. He wonders what Ben will be when he grows up.

Is he lonely? Is he okay? Did he go back home to the snow? Wait. Stop. He needs a fuckin' cigarette.

He needs a shower.

He might need to eat. Huh. There's a thought. Go out to the diner down the block, get some food. What time is it?

More important, how many happy pills has he got left? This could be a near thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Settled in the sunshine collecting in the long-locked doorway of an abandoned sign shop, Miss Bella shows no fear of Diefenbaker as he noses excitedly about her feet, merely laughing and reaching out to feel his fur. Dief snuffles amiably at her fingers, and she notices Fraser for the first time.

"He's a sweet boy," says Miss Bella, when Fraser shows her the photograph. "Gives me a dollar every time he comes round, which is pretty regular." She wears her grey hair tied neatly in a long braid.

"A boy?" Fraser rubs disappointedly at an eyebrow. "I'm looking for a man, my age, mid thirties--"

"Yes," she says, reaching out a half-gloved hand to lightly stroke his cheek.

Fraser crouches close.

"Tall, skinny, like he forgets to eat," Miss Bella says. "Smile like the sun coming out, blue eyes. Got a cloud of pain behind them, though..." She touches Fraser's chin. "Like yours."

"And this boy, does he have a name, ma'am?" He wishes Miss Bella would stop looking so _closely_ at him.

She chuckles, "I assume so, but I don't know it."

Fraser thanks her and rises to leave, but she tugs at his jacket, and she points further south, telling him that he can ask Marquez, down at the corner.

 

Marquez puts aside an old, mellow classical guitar, and he says, "Your boy is walkin' a wire, my friend. He's down to basics, runs on his nature."

"Could you clarify that, sir?" There is a phantom heat across his chest, in what would be the circle of his arms, missing a particular warmth he has dreamt of, but never possessed.

"The junk," Marquez says sadly. "Gets to a point where whatever a man is, everything else burns off, leaves him down to his metal. He's close, very close. It's getting very _late,_ " Marquez warns, and then he adjusts his old Fedora and he suggests, "You could put a 'please call' message up at the diner. People leave messages on the bulletin board. It's worth asking around there."

Fraser does so, quickly, across the street and only a block down. Fraser, with Dief pretending to be invisible and apparently succeeding, since no one expels him, enters the lobby of the little diner and begins to read the messages. A young waitress sidles up and asks him if she can help him with, you know, anything, and he automatically shows her the photograph. She says, "Oh sure, he runs errands for Rob. Right there." When Fraser looks up there's a modest advert for a messenger service with a name, Rob, and a phone number, and he writes it down with a shaking hand and he offers a heartfelt "Thank you kindly," and staggers out into the daylight.

First he calls D.C.I. Reickhart, a home phone number that he's been told to call no matter the day or hour, and he informs the chief inspector that he's got a lead, vague though it is. A name, Rob, isn't much to go on, but Reickhart is glad to hear from Fraser anyway. He wonders how Fraser has managed positive results so soon, not that he's complaining. Fraser explains that he has talked to some people who've little else to do during the day but pay attention.

Then Fraser dials the telephone number on the business card. It's a voice mail account. Fraser leaves a message, and then he waits for Rob to call. The twenty-three minutes he spends waiting is just about the longest twenty-three minutes he's ever spent doing nothing anywhere, except perhaps for that time on stakeout inside the caribou carcass which, smell-wise, was infinitely worse, but here, now, his impatience is killing him.

 

The first betrayal Fraser can consciously remember was that day at the morgue, after Jamal Martin had been found beaten to death. Ray was quickly putting connections together, so close to recognizing that the absence of the diuretic in Jamal's bloodstream could be just as important as its presence, but he hadn't quite got there, and then Ray made the _mistake_ of asking his partner why they needed to test Jamal for the drug. And Fraser, in a petty move for power, had embarrassed Ray in front of Mort, and made his partner, his _friend,_ feel foolish. That, Fraser recalls, was the first betrayal.

And the hell of it is, it wasn't even on account of any trespass by Ray, but because of a frightening thing Fraser had realized about himself; about what he wanted, about what he couldn't have.

 

Fraser imagines he can hear a digital timer ticking over, Ray's voice calling out, "Before I die of waiting?" The idea of running up and down the streets calling out Ray's name presents itself again. Dief is talking him out of it when the mobile phone rings.

Fraser tells Rob that he's searching for a man who might work for him. Rob would like to know why.

Then he's giving Fraser directions to his club, "Two o'clock. Don't be late."

 

The Cherry Bomb is closed, the sign on the front door claiming they don't open until 6. Still, the door is open, so Fraser and Dief walk in. There's a large, dour man working behind the bar. When Fraser asks him for Rob, he squints suspiciously, but nods toward the rear of the club where a tall, copper-skinned man a few years older than Fraser stands. The man motions him forward, and sits down again in the padded horse shoe of the red leather upholstery.

The old leather lets out a mellow squeak as Fraser gingerly scoots in to sit facing the club's owner. Diefenbaker settles on his haunches a little way off, watching. "Good afternoon, sir. You must be Rob? I'm--"

"Constable Benton Fraser. Nice hat." Rob leans back in the booth, letting his shoulders relax against the back. He's a lean man, broad in the shoulders, his neatly trimmed hair once black, steadily turning white. "You here in an official capacity?"

"No, sir. It's entirely personal, I assure you." Fraser fishes in his jacket pocket for Ray's photograph. "I'm hoping you might assist me in locating a friend of mine."

"Who's your canine pal?" Rob is paying very little attention to Fraser.

"This is Diefenbaker. He's half wolf, actually. He's deaf."

"Does he read lips?"

Fraser blinks. Is Rob merely teasing, or has he somehow guessed? How could he possibly? "Er, yes, he does."

Rob pronounces succintly, "Diefenbaker," and the half-wolf steps forward cautiously. Rob reaches for him slowly, then rubs him hard behind the ears. Dief groans in appreciation.

"And your friend's name is?"

Fraser fidgets, toying with Ray's picture. "His -- My friend. Yes." He scrubs agitatedly at one eyebrow. "I --well, you see, I don't actually know his name, at--at the moment." What the hell happened to his composure?

Rob raises a dark, slender eyebrow. "He's your friend, but you don't know his name."

"He's very likely using an alias at this time," Fraser justifies. He feels himself blush. "I have no idea what it might be."

 _Traitor,_ he thinks at Diefenbaker, who only leans harder into Rob's knowledgeable fingers.

"Sounds to me like he doesn't want to be found," Rob concludes. "Not even by you."

"Definitely not by me," Fraser admits, and he meets Rob's appraising gaze levelly. Rob looks back at him with the eyes of a lynx. A mountain lion. A full-blood wolf. Rob can see into Fraser, sense his weakness. His dishonesty. Fraser crushes the urges to strike out, to flee.

Rob reaches across the table. "The photograph?"

Fraser hands it over, and Rob smiles, genuinely warm. "Ah, sweet Mamet."

"Mamet, as in David Mamet?" Fraser doesn't like the way Rob said 'sweet Mamet.'

"Like the film director? I don't know, he just goes by Mamet. Who's the woman?"

"His wife. Ex wife."

"Ex wife. Hnn. She give you this?"

"Yes--"

"Willingly? Eagerly?"

"I--yes, she's very concerned."

"They still care for each other then?"

"W--Yes. They can't live together, they --" He feels like a raw recruit taking an exam he hasn't studied for. A nightmare come true.

"Still sleep together, don't they. These two, sometimes."

"Not anymore." The note of finality when Fraser hears himself declare this is strangely comforting.

"And where do you fit into all of this?"

"He's my partner." Mistake! Mistake mistake mistake, get it together, Benton. He tries not to rub at his eyebrow, ends up crushing the brim of his hat.

Rob is looking at him as though he already knows all of Fraser's answers, the answers Fraser hasn't prepared for. "I don't believe he's a Mountie, Ben."

"Benton," he corrects automatically. He didn't prepare for this. How could he have gone hunting and not prepared properly?

Rob studies the photograph, shakes his head. "Must require some interesting emotional gymnastics on his part, trying to please the both of you."

"Please us both, what do you mean?" He can't mean what it sounds like. It's impossible.

"Please don't feign stupidity," Rob chides. "Yours is the name he calls out at the last, and you've never laid a hand on him?"

"You're assuming that I'm, that he's, that we're..." Dammit Benton, get hold of yourself. "That I'm inclined that way."

"Benton." Rob regards him as one might a willfully backward schoolboy. "You look, but you don't touch, eh? Maybe fantasize when you're alone, but when you're with him you keep a safe distance? That's too bad. He enjoys being touched. He craves it, touching, being touched, and I always figured, by the way he calls your name... That's a damn shame, Benton. An oversight on your part."

"I--I don't think this is an appropriate..." Was that it? This? Ray'd been trying to tell him something there by the lake, God, was it _this,_ that he wanted--that he needed--from Fraser, they could have--

"Don't," Fraser warns tightly. "You presume too much."

"Skin like pale, rose satin," Rob provokes.

"I would prefer not to hear the sordid details, if you don't mind," Fraser insists, more loudly than he'd intended. He can feel the heat rising in him, the denial, the anger, all the way up from his chest to his hairline. He tries to unclench his teeth.

Rob leans forward, his eyes intense. "We're always safe, he's never kissed me, and he won't let me kiss him. I keep him warm, I remind him to eat, and it's your name he calls when he comes, not mine. If you've never even _bothered,_ then why are you so determined to find him and bring him back?"

"Because he is my friend," Fraser says staunchly, "and he's too far from home." All of which, at least, is the truth. He sits up straight, and forces himself to quit reeling.

He shoves away the unwanted image of Ray naked and writhing in this man's arms, calling out for him, for Ben. "He is ill, as though you didn't know," Fraser reminds harshly, "and I've come to take him home and help him get well, and tell him how sorry I am..." He stutters on the last, tries to breathe it back in. He hadn't meant to say that, not at all. Certainly not to this man, a man like this.

Rob eyes him for a while, his discerning gaze hard and unsettling, and then he says, "There was an incident out on Concession Road, last night. Couple of acquaintances of Mamet's and mine ran into some trouble there on Thursday night, and yesterday morning came sniffing around looking for a weapons dealer. Claimed they just wanted a little payback, wanted to scare the bastards. But you know how that sort of thing can go very sour very quickly."

All Fraser can do is nod. He can't seem to switch paths, can't keep up. His imagination is still battering away at the possibility that he might have had Ray, all this time, might have been the one to hear his own name--if only he'd stopped pushing, and listened.

"You still with me, Mountie?"

"What?"

Rob smiles thinly. "Constable, I don't make waves, I don't get greedy, and I have a knack for understanding who I'm talking to. I'm guessing my sweet Mamet's got a long list of people he used to pretend to be. But then something went terribly, horribly wrong, and he decided enough was enough, and he's become something of a lost soul who doesn't want to remember any of what went before. And you are a part of what went before, aren't you, Constable Benton Fraser."

"Does he get the heroin from you?"

"No. That and the meth, I don't know where he gets them. He comes and goes as he pleases. He's not for me to control."

"Meth? Methamphetamine?" When did that happen?

"The heroin makes you forget, makes you feel good, but it makes you groggy for a while. The amphetamines wake you up. Over time the body gets confused, worn out. No one lasts on that."

Oh. Oh, Ray. Walking a wire without a net, Marquez said. "Please," Fraser begs. "Can't you make him stop?"

Rob studies him for a moment, and then his eyes narrow, and he wonders, "Would you let me have you?"

"Have?" Fraser gapes, his mind racing. Oh dear. "Ah. Ah, I see, have, as in... You--you mean, in exchange for your help." Bastard. He can't. He can't do _that,_ can he?

"See, I knew you were smarter than you let on."

"Yes," Fraser agrees. If it will lead him to Ray, yes. His hands are shaking, but there's no point in trying to hide that.

Rob continues smoothly, "You will let me strip you down, put my unsavory hands all over your lovely, naked skin, bend you over, and fuck your pretty ass as though you're nothing more than an expensive rent boy."

Fraser can feel his heart pounding in his throat. It must be obvious to Rob. Rob can probably hear it. Is there something wrong with Fraser that he almost wants this? Perhaps it's a sort of justice, a cosmic balance. Perhaps he deserves it, deserves to make payment, to be humbled in this way. "Yes."

Rob's eyebrows twitch. "Hnn," he says thoughtfully. "Interesting. Never mind."

Fraser's mouth drops open, but he has no idea what to say. It's probably a lucky thing he's sitting down.

Rob starts writing on a serviette. "Eddie's the one who wanted the guns. Him and Richie, but Richie... This is their telephone number. I haven't got an address. I called over there this morning, and Eddie told me Mamet was there, but there's no guarantee he's there now. Listen, Constable," and here Rob's voice takes on a tone of genuine concern that's more disturbing than anything else Rob has said to him. "Concession Road means a connection to Horace Burke. That's why I didn't want Mamet out there. He was only supposed to lead them to the man who sold them the guns, and then come back."

When Rob looks hard into Fraser's face, his amber eyes seem to burn. "Constable, you might not have much time."

 

Fraser emerges blinking and disoriented into the afternoon sun. His mind is whirling with things he can't afford to think about right now, and he forces himself to settle down. He telephones Reickhart, and asks him for an address on the phone number Rob gave him. Reickhart finds him the address, and when Fraser asks him about Horace Burke, the D.C.I. offers, "There's a guy in Metro. working on him, name of Becker. I don't know anything about Becker, but I wish him luck with Burke. He's a nasty one, Horace Burke. Used to run with Hendrickson, slipped the net somehow, and now he's starting to branch out and take over some of Hendrickson's old turf. His nephew runs some sort of florist's service for him, which I'm pretty sure is a front, but... If we had anything solid on him we'd haul him in and gladly, but so far he's been a canny one. Tread carefully there, Constable."

Fraser promises that he will.

Dief snorts doubtfully.

 

According to the map in Fraser's head, Eddie's apartment is not far, approximately seventeen blocks. Upon arrival Fraser fails to locate the manager of the apartment building, and he decides not to waste time waiting about. By now he is in fact well and truly sick of waiting.

He recalls Ray's credit card trick at the consulate. "Yes, I realize I once chastised you for breaking and entering," he tells Dief as the door opens before them, "it's just that--oh. Well, thank you. One tries to adapt to one's circumstances."

The devastation spread out before them is truly appalling. Dief sits back, wincing and wrinkling his nose in a silent snarl of sensory overload. Fraser coughs on the stench of alcohol, cigarettes, sex and drugs, and steps tentatively into the mess. The skeletons of cupboards lurch from the walls, doors dangling on their hinges, glass from the doors scattered across the counters. Broken appliances, a shattered lamp lie strewn across the living room carpet alongside cigarette butts, refuse of all sorts, much of it disturbingly unclassifiable, and with the faint dust of cocaine over all.

Dief identifies the odors of at least nine separate humans, one of them Ray. In one of the bedrooms he snuffles into a distrait mattress, its sheets torn from the corners, blankets on the floor. Fraser presses his face into the crumpled sheets while Dief stands over the spot, making a yearning sort of whimper. Ray. Ray slept here. Here, in this... trash heap. Alone. There are female scents all over the ruined apartment, but not here. There is the scent of an unknown male, but it's equally strong throughout the apartment. Probably Eddie, possibly Richie. Here, Dief mostly smells Ray.

"Do we wait," Fraser consults with his friend, "or do we talk to Becker? There may be any number of reasons why Ray isn't here, and we have no idea whether he plans to return." Fraser glances about the disaster zone. "If he returns to... to Rob, I believe Rob will call us."

Dief makes an interrogative sound, and Fraser admits, "Well, yes, as to that, I was rather jealous, a little."

The half wolf eyes him knowingly.

"All right, yes, I was sorely tempted to kick him in the head at one point. And you! You--how could you sit there and shamelessly let him scratch you silly while he was _propositioning_ me?"

Dief grumbles and heads for the apartment door. Fraser licks agitatedly at his lower lip and snorts, "Oh, you knew he didn't mean it. There I was, having an--an emotional crisis, and you just --"

He follows the wolf out into the worn hallway. "If he'd referred to me as a _cheap_ rent boy, then you'd have been worried. Ah. Well, thank you kindly." Fraser takes a deep breath, deftly sublimates his raging jealousy and the guilt freshly cracked open inside him, and suggests, "Time to speak with Detective Becker, I believe. We're going to need the truck."

Fraser flexes his neck sideways, trying to ease the tension. He rolls his shoulders, but he can't get at the knot between. He's feeling stretched, attenuated. It reminds him of those first few days in Chicago, when he arrived from the Territories. The difference then was that he'd had Ray Vecchio to help him, to befriend him. Here, there's no one but Dief, and Dief is nearly as lost as he is. He wonders if this is how Ray Kowalski feels all the time, when he's under cover.

He thinks of Ray Vecchio, living someone else's life in Las Vegas.

He wonders briefly whose life he's living. Is this the identity he consciously chose, or did he merely fail to question an inheritance? Everyone around him believed he would follow his father into the RCMP. Even he assumed it. But is he now the man he would have wanted to be, had he considered any other option? He shakes the thought loose as pointless and self-indulgent.

 

Detective D.R. Becker is exiting his office when Fraser walks through the squad room. It's not that different from the 2-7, except that none of the faces are familiar, and here at the Toronto metropolitan police precinct he is the Federal presence. It's a peculiar turnabout, but he decides to embrace it, and he introduces himself, "Detective Becker, I'm Constable Benton Fraser, Royal--"

"Yeah, Mounties. What can I do for you? As you see, I'm on my way out." Detective D.R. Becker is a lean, sharp-edged man. There is a cold, suspicious glitter in his eyes when he meets Fraser's gaze directly, but then he seems to hedge, though he hides it by turning away.

Fraser paces him through the precinct, feeling his hackles rise, but he tries to remain polite. He can feel the aggression radiating off of Dief's fur. These are not promising signs.

Other members of the precinct seem to pick up on the tension, and they move out of the trio's way. Fraser can feel their stares between his shoulders as he follows Becker out.

"I'm looking for my friend," Fraser begins, "He's--" and here he finds himself diverting the truth slightly, peculiarly unwilling to betray Ray's vulnerability to a fellow detective. Which is twice strange, considering that Rob knows. "I believe he may have become involved with a man named Horace Burke."

Becker flinches almost imperceptibly, while Fraser continues, "Or with two other men peripherally involved with Horace Burke. Now, I have no personal interest in Mr. Burke, but if you could help me find my friend..."

Becker flaps a hand impatiently as they exit into the parking lot. "You got a picture of this lost friend?"

Fraser duly shows him Ray's photograph, and Becker shakes his head. "Never seen him."

"His name is Mamet," Fraser offers helpfully.

"Nope. Don't know the name or the face. Listen, it's late, I'm off duty, and I'm at something of a standstill on the Burke case. Leads have gone cold, he's laying low. So if you don't mind, I've been catching bad guys all day, and I'm going to go relax and play a little pool. Good luck finding your 'friend,' Constable," and then Becker gets into a large brown sedan and he drives away.

Fraser and Diefenbaker give him a moment's lead, then they get into the Bronco, and follow at a discreet distance.

"Burke is laying low?" Fraser mutters skeptically. "That is certainly not what D.C.I. Reickhart implied. Did Detective Becker seem awfully... twitchy to you?"

Dief snaps, and Fraser nods. "Piss ant. Hm. Crude, but apt."

They follow Becker to a disheveled-looking pool hall, just as the detective had claimed, but Fraser is convinced that pool is not the only game Becker is playing. There are too many people coming and going for Fraser to guess who might be connected to Becker without going inside, but it occurs to him that if Becker intends to meet with or conduct business with anyone he will desire privacy, and that means he'll likely do it round the back of the pool hall. Nothing for it but to wait.

It's well into the night before Becker exits the building followed by a heavy set young man carrying a satchel. It's dark of course, but Fraser estimates his age as late twenties, early thirties, and how many men in that age bracket carry around a leather satchel? It could be a gym duffel, but given the unkempt look of the man, Fraser doesn't think so. Suddenly Becker's got him down on the ground, then up against the wall and handcuffed and shoved into the front seat of the brown sedan. Gym bag? Not bloody likely.

Fraser concludes that this might be Eddie and Dief, nose out the truck window, confirms it.

Though he can make out the sounds of voices, from this distance and through the glass of the sedan's closed windows Fraser can't follow the conversation. What he does notice is what Dief smelled on Becker earlier. The man indulges liberally in the very substance he is supposed to be controlling. Even now he becomes twitchier and more manic as the interview progresses. At last Eddie and his satchel tumble out of the sedan, and the young man flees into an old Camaro and drives away.

Fraser is tempted to follow, but he decides that whether he talks to Eddie or to Becker he will surely be lied to, and Becker is probably the more composed liar. Ray is awfully good at interpreting body language, whereas Fraser is not nearly as adept at reading through heightened emotion. Eddie is no doubt in a panicked state right now, and would prove useless. Fraser will therefore engage in a meaningful conversation with D.R. Becker, and see what Becker's lie tells him.

He and Dief leave the truck and dart across the street to catch the detective before he can make it back through the door of the pool hall. Fraser shoves him face first up against the brick wall mere centimeters from where Becker so recently cuffed Eddie. Becker swears and threatens, but a well-timed growl from Dief makes him suddenly more cooperative.

Fraser snarls into Becker's ear, "Listen to me, Detective D.R. Becker. Listen very carefully. I don't give a good goddamn about you, or Horace Burke, or who gets the credit for putting him away. All I'm interested in is the safe return of my friend. Now you are going to tell me what's going on, or my lupine companion here is going to have your balls for breakfast. Do you understand me, Detective D. R. Becker?"

Fraser admits silently to himself that he has become… exasperated.

And Detective D.R. Becker, heart pounding and reeking of the cocaine thrumming through his bloodstream, pants out the anticipated lie.

Eddie, he tells Fraser, plans to meet Burke at his warehouse tomorrow, ostensibly in order to return the stolen coke, so that Burke will leave him alone. When they make the trade Becker and assorted officers of the law will be on hand to arrest Burke and his men. Noon, Becker claims, and he gasps out the address of the warehouse.

"I certainly hope this is the correct address," Fraser whispers into Detective D.R. Becker's left ear, "because if it's wrong, I'll be back. And you know what they say about Mounties, don't you."

Becker half-laughs, "They always get their man?"

" 'Maintain the Right.' Tsk. Kids today." And then he and Diefenbaker disappear into the night, turning back just once to find Becker standing in the jaundiced glow of the lamp above the door and peering into the dark, trying to see where they've gone before he ducks back into the lighted sanctuary of the pool hall.

"Cockroach," Fraser states.

Dief demurs.

"Of course, you're right. Roaches as a rule don't care for well-lit areas. But you understand my meaning."

Dief nudges Fraser's right hand, the one still curled into a fist.

 

They drive to the address Becker has given, where they find as promised a large, brick warehouse four stories high. Pulled up in the alley between this warehouse and another Fraser finds a grey delivery van painted with the red logo of "First Rate Florist and Party Supplies." There is a light on the fourth floor.

Fraser checks his watch, finds the time at 9:34, and he suggests, "Supper? We'll bring some back with us. I'm going to check us out of the boarding house. We're sleeping here tonight."

Dief barks and whines at the warehouse. "Yes," Fraser agrees, "it does smell bad."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Sunday morning:

Mamet is sprawled fast asleep and blessedly dreamless when Eddie comes in yelling for Richie.

Eddie smells drunk, and like he slept outside. Of course he smelled drunk yesterday too, but still, where the hell's he been all night that now he's in such a hurry?

There are so many reasons Mamet does not want to wake up.

Mamet tells Eddie that Richie went to see Lucy, and he tries to dress himself quickly, and he wishes Eddie would fuckin' stop shouting so much, 'cause he's trying to think...

Eddie's telephone rings while Mamet's getting dressed. Eddie seems to be listening very carefully to the guy talking on the other end, and he starts whimpering, "Richie, Richie..."

....and what Mamet thinks is that Horace Burke saw their big neon sign, and things are very rapidly getting very ugly. Shouldn't Becker be along right about here?

And he thinks that this is an awfully mercenary business he's in, and that his happy pills are in his coat pocket. He's got just enough.

He hopes someone will keep feeding his turtle.

When Eddie says Yes to the guy on the telephone Mamet knows that's not what he means.

What Mamet learns on the drive over to Kevin Janey's house is that Mickey Burke's got Richie. Where, is what Eddie wants to know. And it turns out Eddie can add. Not well, and mighty damn late in the game, but he can do two and two.

By 8 a.m. Eddie is threatening Kevin Janey with a swift and messy death, and Mamet is handing his understandably frightened mother a pen, so that Kevin can write down the directions to Horace Burke's warehouse.

Far as Mamet can tell, Eddie hasn't wasted a lot of time wondering how the hell they all got to this moment. All he wants is Richie. Mamet notes to himself that it's too bad Eddie didn't realize that back when he still had Richie, but he supposes that's another thing Eddie hasn't got time to think about right now.

Mamet considers that Eddie has finally realized what a gun is for. Sometimes late isn't any better than never. He doesn't let Eddie kill Kevin. Not in front of his mother.

Pitter patter, let's get at 'er.

 

There's no one watching for them outside the warehouse, as though it did not even occur to them that Eddie might not do as he's told.

Amateurs, Mamet thinks.

"Top floor. Hey. Are you with me, or are you useless, man?"

"I'm good. I'm good." Mamet rouses himself. Gotta go to work, one last hurrah.

He really wishes Eddie would quit _shaking_ him. Jeez.

After this, he can sleep. Part of him hopes his dreams will have blue eyes, dark hair that curls when it gets wet. Part of him is afraid of exactly that.

He took his last two happy pills this morning. Can he estimate, or what?

Eddie starts climbing the fire escape, trying to get into the building.

Christ on crutches, he's surrounded by morons. "Use the fuckin' door!" What's the address here, again?

There's a telephone in the cluttered hallway. He's pretty sure he remembers Reickhart's number.

There's a small boy playing in the stairwell. Mamet shushes him, tracks him with the Beretta just to make his point. You can't tell with kids. They don't always know when it isn't a game. Look at Eddie. He's thirty-odd, and he just figured it out.

"Just watch my back," Eddie says. He says it all wrong. His voice is wrong, it's the wrong voice.

3... 2... 1...

"It's me, man. Open up the door." And Burke's man opens up the door.

Jesus, a guy that dumb deserves to get shot.

Eddie shoots the guy who opened the door and now they're struggling on the floor. Mamet's got a second shot for him, once Eddie gets the hell outta the way.

Man to the right, rummaging for a weapon in the desk. Mamet's quick across the room, one long, vertical step up onto the desk just as the other guy finds his weapon, and boom, it's a standoff. The other guy twitches, and Mamet fires blind, one two three four five six, all in a messy cluster to the torso. The guy crawls moaning under the desk, Mamet presses the muzzle of his gun to the surface, estimates the shot, but instead twists tight left to a guy in a flowered shirt entering behind him. One wounding shot, then two and three, and then he's off the desk and stalking the room, looking for leftovers.

There's a dead guy strangled and bloody sprawled in the fern house. Jesus Christ, when'd Burke get so stupid?

Eddie fired the first shot. One shot, then he stood around fuck-all useless. Now he's standing in the middle of the office laughing like some conquering hero, like he's just won a war. "You got my back, man!"

No, Mamet thinks, he fuckin' did not. He did what he had to do, what he knows how to do. And now he's done.

All those years before, and he's never killed anybody 'til now.

Mamet starts to laugh, a hysterical grimace that he bites back, forces himself to calm down. He feels his blood settle, feels it cool, turning heavy in his chest. He'd be sick, if he were sober.

Telephone's ringing from another room, Richie's back there yelling for Eddie. Probably blood all over the fuckin' floor, 'cause Mickey's not known for neatness.

The office stinks of blood and sweat and fear and Mamet stinks of blood and sweat and fear, and he has had enough. He is doneski. Let Reickhart and the boys finish up here, they can get Burke with what they find. As for Mamet, dot him, file him, stick him in a drawer marked eternal rest.

He whistles a little tune. Doesn't know what it is, he heard it somewhere. He nestles the muzzle of the Beretta against the soft under part of his jaw, back by his throat, and he pulls the trigger.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come morning Fraser finds himself late to the scene after all. He and Diefenbaker have been out on a quick run, which turned into a rather longer run, as they felt obligated to foil first a pick-pocket and then the robbery of a small convenience shop. Oddly, the perpetrator seemed most interested in shop-lifting a snorkel, a large bottle of canola oil, and fifty feet of Ace bandage. Fraser and the responding peace officer couldn't help but be intrigued, but Diefenbaker really didn't want to know.

When Fraser and Dief are still half a block from the Bronco, Dief suddenly stops in the middle of the sidewalk, sniffs the air, and begins barking furiously. He dashes across the street, then halts at the entrance to the alley, casting and whuffling. He can smell Ray -- and Richie now, which is new, and disturbing. D. R. Becker, it seems, has told them at least a partial truth after all. Probably he doesn't even realize it yet.

Fraser paces the wolf along the side of the building, past the fire escape, past the refuse dumpsters, and there's a battered door, standing slightly ajar. Dief whines excitedly and shoves his muzzle into the gap. "Softly," Fraser cautions. He winces when the door creaks, and they ease inside.

Dief is halfway up the stairs, Fraser close behind when he hears, "It's me, open up the door." He starts running.

He's flying onto the fourth floor then, skidding to his right down the hall, and he sees a familiar figure leaping through the doorway at the end of the hall. Black jeans and a long black coat with a red lining flapping behind him, it's Ray, his Ray, and it's all Fraser can do to keep from calling out.

Dief screeches to a halt ahead of him, there's gunfire, one and then another, Fraser throwing himself to his hands and knees. He's wide eyed on the floor in the doorway, where a man in a blue shirt is bleeding out on the linoleum in front of him, but Fraser is watching Ray _flow_ upward onto a desk, as though the law of gravity is second-rate by comparison. There's a brief standoff with the man behind the desk, then it's one two three four five six shots to the other man's body, Ray's face turned away, the blood spurting onto Ray's shirt, onto the side of his face. Out of the corner of Fraser's eye he sees Dief crawling, scrabbling into the melee, hugging the floor around the edge of the room, and it's just as Fraser gets inside the office that a third man arrives from the pick-up entrance. Ray can't see him, and Fraser's mouth opens in warning, but somehow Ray knows. He twists left, and one, then two three shots, and Ray is down off the desk and stalking the room like a tiger denied.

Eddie is standing in the middle of the slaughter laughing as though it's some sort of game, while Fraser crawls through the cartridge casings and the blood, slick beneath his palms and oozing up through his jeans, between his fingers. Ray is smiling a strange, disengaged sort of grin, and there's a warning in the pit of Fraser's stomach. Ray has never killed anyone before.

Dief whines, imploring, and Fraser manages to croak out, "Ray."

Ray whistles a brief, unfamiliar little tune, presses the muzzle of his gun to the soft under part of his jaw, there toward the back, near his throat, and Fraser gasps, "Ray," just as he pulls the trigger. Fraser makes a harsh, keening sound, as though he's being gutted.

The gun goes, "click."

Eddie is staring at Ray and looking alarmed and sick, and there's a telephone persistently going off in another room.

"Click," again.

Ray frowns and murmurs, counting on his fingers, "One for the guy at the door, then one.... six..."

"Ray." Fraser is trying not to be sick, trying to blink the salt of tears and sweat out of his eyes.

"...one two three for the guy in the nasty shirt..."

"Ray."

"...and one for the dog. That's eleven."

In the room with the ringing telephone someone is yelling for Eddie. Eddie stares at Fraser, and demands, "Who the fuck are you, man? And who's Ray?"

"Ray."

"Fuck, I oughta have four rounds left." The disappointment in his voice is heartbreaking.

"Fuck this, I'm going after Richie," Eddie says, and he follows the sound of his friend's voice.

"Ray," Fraser says.

Ray turns to him, stares blankly for a moment, and then his mouth opens in a round, red O of recognition. He takes a deep, harsh breath as though there is no air in the room, and he turns white and slides down the wall behind him into a heap of cringing angles on the floor.

Ray's eyes are huge and blue, and his voice is very small. "Oh, oh.... How did you get here?"

"We came to--"

"Why are you here, why are you here, why are you here," and he squeezes his eyes shut and tries the gun again, but Fraser's got hold of his wrist now, Ray's slender right wrist with the little metal bracelet, and he takes the weapon from Ray easily, as though Ray's got no strength left at all. He pulls his shirt loose and cleans Ray's prints from the weapon and he sets it aside.

He's tampering with evidence. _Meg and I will worry about the rest of it._ Damn well hope so. Not that he's ever been screwed by his superiors before.

Ray cringes away from him, flinches when Diefenbaker snuggles in, whining, trying to offer comfort. "I can't," Ray chants. "I can't. I can't." He makes a small, desperate sound. "There's not enough left." He leans his forehead into Dief's then, lets himself be comforted by the insistent wolf.

Fraser puts a bloody hand on Ray's shoulder. "We have to leave now." He can hear Eddie and Richie in the other room.

Richie's breathing indicates that he is in an enormous amount of pain. He needs a hospital, not a getaway car.

Fraser pulls Ray to his feet, and leads him swiftly through the fern room. They step over a battered corpse. Fraser wonders, but he hasn't got the time to find out, because he can hear the service elevator rising, and two male voices, and he's guessing they're not RCMP. He can hear Eddie and Richie heading directly toward the sound, and he calls to them, but they don't hear him.

Ray turns, one last act as Mamet when he shouts, "Eddie! Don't go out through fuckin' pick up! Eddie!"

But Eddie isn't listening. Fraser dithers for a moment, his instinct and his training leading him to go and somehow force Eddie and Richie to follow him. Diefenbaker turns to Fraser and growls, insisting they be far away from here as quickly as possible. Fraser pulls Ray along behind him, and they run until they find the fire escape. Fraser throws a potted palm through the painted-shut window, hauls Ray, cursing volubly and not nearly as heavy as he should be over his shoulder, and launches himself after Diefenbaker down the back fire escape. Once on the ground they make for the Bronco. If anyone notices two men and a half-wolf splattered with blood, no one points them out.

Fraser shoves Ray into the passenger seat and buckles him in like a child, while Dief jumps over the back of the seat into the rear of the vehicle. Fraser nearly breaks off the key in the ignition in his hurry to leave the warehouse behind. He forces himself to calm down. The last thing they need now is a traffic accident.

"Ray," Fraser says as he guides the Bronco into traffic, "we're not going home right away. I'm going to take you some place where you can rest."

Ray is quiet for a moment, and then he whispers, "Don't wanna go to no hospital."

"I know. We won't."

Fraser glances at him, finds him biting his lower lip and squinting at the sun, and nearly doesn't hear him when he asks, "Why did you come here?"

"I should never have walked away from you," Fraser confesses.

"You walked. I ran. What you been doing for the last nine months?"

"Paperwork, mostly."

Ray laughs sharply, "Jesus, you poor bastard!"

A smile tugs at Fraser's mouth. It feels so good, it almost hurts. "Thank you kindly."

 

Fraser has parked under a tree in the lot of a supermarket and now he's on the phone to Reickhart. The D.C.I. is at the warehouse already. "Christ, it's a slaughter," Reickhart says, as though Fraser doesn't know. "Burke is dead."

"Um… the other two, I mean, there were two young men there, not Burke's."

"We're still sorting them out. We've got one survivor. How's Kowalski?"

One. Just one.

"Right here in the fuckin' car," Ray mutters. He rolls down the window.

Reickhart asks Fraser if he remembers the directions to the safe house.

Fraser gets them on the road again. He's aiming northwest. "How long do you have until, you know?" Why can't he just say it? Until the withdrawal symptoms begin. Was that so difficult? Yes.

"Dunno," Ray says. "Dunno, I got no sense anymore."

Fraser realizes Ray means he's got no sense of time. "Where were you when you took your last pills?"

"Eddie's place," Ray says. "Before Eddie woke me up."

Which means an unknown period of time between the pills and Eddie waking him.

"We'll be at the house in a couple of hours."

Ray glances sideways at Fraser. "Just us?" Blood has dried maroon on the side of his neck, his forehead.

"Just us." Fraser grimaces. The steering wheel is sticky in his hands. He does not want to drive two hundred kilometers like this.

"I can not believe I did it again," Ray mumbles. "Jumped out of a fuckin' window after you."

"Well now technically you didn't actually jump, as I was--sorry, I'm, ah, doing the niggling thing again, aren't I. Dotting the i's, crossing the t's."

"Perpetually," Ray says flatly. He's glaring sideways at Fraser, a challenge in his stare.

Fraser doesn't know how to answer that look. Perpetually.

"What, no treat, no 'Good boy Ray, you used a word longer than two syllables'?"

"Ray, I'm sorry, I--"

"Just let me out at the stop light, Fraser."

"I can't do that."

"You press on the brake pedal, I open the door and I get out."

"And go find some other way to do away with yourself?" The images won't be leaving him any time soon. One dead near the office door, one at the desk, a third near the pick-up door, and the muzzle of the Beretta pressed up tight against Ray's lower jaw. Blood all over the walls. Fraser's stomach lurches, and he swallows hard several times.

"I will handcuff you to the door handle of this truck, if I have to." His teeth clench. "Don't force me."

"You brought your handcuffs, looking for me?" Ray snorts.

Fraser steers the Bronco onto the highway. "We've got a couple of hours' drive. Get some sleep, if you can."

There's a long stretch of highway ahead of them. At this speed Fraser doesn't think Ray will try to escape from the truck. He won't end himself like that. It's inefficient, and messy.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Diefenbaker shifting about in the covered truck bed. Finally the wolf can't stand it anymore, and he lunges toward the front to slurp Ray joyfully on the back of his left ear. Fraser expects loud exclamations of protest and disgust, but instead Ray silently reaches a hand back and buries his fingers in the wolf's soiled fur. Dief rambles happily. Fraser concentrates on the yellow lines down the middle of the highway.

One survivor. Just one.

 

There came a certain point when Fraser began withholding things from Ray during investigations. Observations. Details. Small bits of pertinent information. The consideration and respect due one's partner and friend. The knowledge of how desperately Fraser wanted him.

He supposes the subterfuge reached its peak shortly after what he and Ray referred to as The Extradition Incident. For a brief period of time, Ray was entirely dependent on Fraser; on his friendship, on his deductive skills. For those few days, in a way, Ray was his. It was difficult to let him go afterward, let him walk out of the consulate and back to belonging to no one but himself. Perhaps still he belonged a little bit to Stella. He always would. But not to Fraser. Nevertheless, something in Fraser persisted in trying to pull Ray back, make him dependent. Fraser had never intended to turn traitor, but once again, he found himself in the dismaying position of obsessively wanting someone he couldn't have. Surely, Fraser should have recognized the signs, by then?

And that fateful day, the day they fought and Ray demanded of him, "Why don't you listen to me?" and popped Fraser a smart one on the jaw when Fraser refused to _shut up,_ that day Ray should not have had to remind him that he couldn't swim, before Fraser nagged him into leaping twenty-odd metres into the lake they call Michigan, thereby maneuvering Ray into the position of being rescued by Fraser, yet again. Fraser couldn't get enough of rescuing Ray. But Ray could.

 

They arrive at the safe house late in the afternoon. It's a small, neat blue cottage set in a large meadow with a gravel drive, bordered by a curve of trees. Behind the trees Fraser glimpses the glitter of a lake. There are no visible neighbors. It's a beautiful spot, but Fraser hasn't got the time to enjoy it.

Ray is looking the worse for wear, a bit 'green around the gills,' as Fraser's grandmother might have said. He's been hugging himself tightly for the past half hour or so, his eyes closed, his mouth set in a grim line.

When Fraser opens the passenger side of the Bronco and urges Ray out he trudges silently after Fraser and follows him into the small cabin, as though all the fight has gone out of him.

It's not much bigger than Fraser's cabin in the north, but it's warm and comfortably furnished. The single bedroom is off to the right of the front door, and the bathroom just to the left of the bedroom door, accessed from the bedroom.

"Come on," Fraser urges gently. "Let's get you into the shower, and then into bed."

Ray nods mutely and begins to strip down in the bedroom, while Fraser runs the hot water. He washes the blood from his hands in the spray from the shower.

Ray shuffles in, apparently not caring that Fraser is in the room. God, but he is thin. This is not at all Fraser's fantasy version of his first time seeing Ray naked. All he can think of now is how breakable Ray looks. "You'll be all right on your own?"

"Yeah." Ray nods and closes the curtain. Fraser tugs it to at the far end of the shower, pulls clean towels out of a cupboard above the toilet and leaves two of them on the lid.

He finds clean sheets and blankets in the closet, and makes up the double bed while Ray washes the blood off of himself. Fraser finds himself staring transfixed at the bed, dozing on his feet, and he comes to when he hears Ray turn off the shower. He finishes tucking the blankets in at the bottom.

Dief arrives from his survey of the rest of the cabin, makes the rounds of the bedroom. Double bed, dresser, chest of drawers, where Fraser finds neatly folded clothing of various sizes; t-shirts, sweat pants, even boxer shorts. He and Ray have got their choice of grey or blue.

Ray emerges from the bathroom stark naked, rubbing at his shoulders, and once again Fraser is struck by the look of him. Ray has never had any weight to spare, but now...

"What?" Ray eyes him warily.

Beautiful. Fragile. Fraser shakes his head sharply. "I'm sorry, I just--you could use some food."

Ray frowns. "Feel sick. Any ginger ale in this place?"

"I'll check the kitchen." Fraser hands him a set of clothing; grey t-shirt, sweat pants, boxers, and Ray sits on the edge of the bed to get dressed.

Now that the adrenaline of the day's earlier events is wearing off, Fraser finds it difficult to concentrate. Still, he checks for ginger ale, and brings some to Ray. He'll make himself a cup of tea. Once he's got Ray settled, then perhaps he can take a cat nap. Dief has already chosen a spot in one corner of the bedroom, and is beginning to doze off. Fraser smiles to himself. Now that they've found Ray, Dief doesn't seem to want to let him out of his sight.

Ray sips at the ginger ale, finally wincing and setting it aside on the night stand. "Thanks for making the bed," he murmurs, and then crawls between the sheets, and curls into a ball on his side, hugging the extra pillow.

"Call me if you need anything?" Fraser says.

Ray's eyes are closed tight, his brow furrowed, as though determined to find the sleep he needs. He nods. "You and Dief need to get the blood off you."

"You'll be all right?"

"'M good."

Fraser collects a set of clean clothing for himself and rouses Dief, who follows him into the bathroom. He sets aside the wet towel Ray used, drops his blood stained clothing on the floor, kicks the bundle into a corner. He hopes there are laundry facilities, but realistically? That amount of blood is not going to come out in the wash.

Under the warm, strong spray of the shower he scrubs vigorously at the wolf's blood-encrusted fur, Dief grunts and moans with pleasure at the attention. Fraser watches swirls of blood circle down the drain. Dief waits patiently, play-snapping at the spray and shredding a wash cloth while Fraser washes himself. Fraser takes a few moments to simply lean into the hot spray, letting it wash over him. He recalls what Marquez told him, that Ray has been stripped down to his nature, down to his metal. What does that mean, after Fraser has watched the same man who has repeatedly risked his life for others kill three people and then attempt to kill himself?

"Ray is a hunter by nature," Fraser whispers into the water running over his face. "A successful hunt normally ends in a kill." He steps back and looks at Dief. "The veneer of civilisation is very thin. Are you hungry?"

Dief woofs softly. Silly question.

"We still have the attempted suicide to reckon," Fraser says, as he's drying himself.

Dief shakes himself for a second time and head-butts Fraser's left thigh. "Of course, you're right. Detox, first. Analyze, later." He smiles wearily at the young wolf. "And supper, now."

 

While Ray tries to rest Fraser explores the small house. There is a small library in one corner of the living room, and upon cataloguing the kitchen cupboards he discovers a large supply of canned goods and a faintly alarming range of medical supplies. There is a mud room between the right corner of the kitchen and the tub end of the bathroom, making the house a neat, efficient rectangle. The rear steps descend from there. In the mud room are more cupboards and a washer and a dryer, large enough to accommodate blankets, even a light duvet. He recognizes a woman's touch here and there throughout, and he theorizes that this place is intended not merely as a hideout, but as a sanctuary.

He finds a couple of bowls suitable for feeding Dief, and manages to feed himself, though his appetite is subdued. He eats anyway, because he knows he should.

As the daylight fades into evening Fraser clicks on the reading lamp and sits on the sofa in the living room, listening to the small sounds Ray makes in the bedroom. He's trying to read an RCMP booklet on drug withdrawal symptoms. His are not the first hands on it. He wonders who else has writhed and sighed in that bed while his partner... friend... frets over how best to help. Have there been knifings, gun shot wounds tended here? This is not a situation he ever imagined himself in while he was patrolling in the Territories. He is ill prepared for this, and really rather frightened.

His first inclination is to fashion a bedroll for himself on the floor of the bedroom, but Ray is still resentful enough of Fraser's interference on his behalf that he is reluctant to crowd him. From here he's got a view into the middle of the bedroom, but he can't see the bed itself, as it is positioned off to the right of door. He hears the rustling of linens, Ray restless between the sheets, shifting constantly in the attempt to find some ease. He pants heavily, sometimes making small noises of discomfort or distress, but he never expresses a genuine complaint. Fraser is reminded of nothing so much as an animal gone to ground, trying to hide its weakness. He would feel vastly better if Ray were grousing and complaining.

Ray tumbles out of bed suddenly, dashes across Fraser's frame of vision, then into the bathroom. Fraser hears him vomiting into the toilet. He starts to get up to help, then thinks better of it. What on earth would he do in there? The last thing Ray will want is Fraser hovering.

After a while he hears the sound of running water, brushing teeth. Fraser wonders whether Ray chose the red tooth brush or the green one. Ray shuffles into the living room in his loose grey t-shirt and his boxers, shed of the sweat pants. He hugs himself tightly, wincing.

"What'd Reickhart say about the other two, about Richie and Eddie?"

"One survivor," Fraser says. "He didn't say which."

"Prob'ly Eddie," Ray guesses. "If one of 'em was gonna make it, it'd be Eddie." He turns again at the bedroom, shuffles back past the sofa.

"Ray, would you like some tea?"

Ray grunts, shakes his head.

"Water? Ginger--"

"Fraser." He paces into the kitchen and back through the living room.

"Understood." He would like very much to get some fluids into Ray, but if they won't stay down, it's no good forcing the issue.

"Sorry."

"I understand. It's just that I feel rather useless."

"You are useless, Fraser. No. That's not what I mean." Ray puts up one hand, long fingers wafting in apology. "I mean there's nothing you can do, I just gotta--" and then he gulps and gulps, and whirls, back into the bathroom, and there's the harsh sound of dry heaving. Diefenbaker trots through the bedroom door to lie down on the rug near the bathroom with his nose between his paws.

Fraser sighs and rubs at his eyebrow. "He's right, I'm afraid. There's not much we can do for him, except be here for him." He makes a face, grumbling, "I sound like a self-help book. 'Drug withdrawals in three easy steps.' Lord."

The next hours are long and frustrating, Ray pacing and retching, steadily turning paler, and gradually beginning to shiver and sweat. Somewhere in the wee hours -- Fraser doesn't know when, there's a clock on the kitchen wall, but no one's looking at it. What's the point? Somewhere in the small, dark hours Fraser starts awake on the sofa and realizes that he's dozed off for a short while.

He listens carefully, but hears nothing. He rubs at eyes that sting with weariness, gets up and peers into the bedroom. Ray is not in the bed. When he checks the bathroom he can make out, there in the dark, Ray huddled on the floor next to the bathtub. He has pulled his arms and legs snug to his torso, all tucked inside the t-shirt. He shivers in the dark, and when Fraser rests a tentative hand on his forehead he finds Ray's skin cold and sweat-slick. Ray hardly stirs when Fraser lifts him off the floor and carries him back to the bed.

Fraser briefly considers getting under the covers with him, to hold him, warm him, but decides against it, and instead decides to make a bedroll for himself after all on the floor, near the foot of Ray's bed. Diefenbaker settles near the chest of drawers, near Fraser's head. Ray's got a clear path to the bathroom, should he need it. Fraser almost wishes Ray would make a little more noise. He's so quiet, his breaths quick, shallow. Fraser doesn't think he'll sleep, but he does.

When he wakes it's just past dawn, and he's roused by the sound of the shower. The booklet he'd been reading estimated that Ray's symptoms would peak at between forty-eight and seventy-two hours. So far it's been less than twenty-four, so Fraser doesn't expect a miracle. The shower curtain is half closed, and at first he doesn't see anyone. He experiences a flutter of panic the moment before he spots Ray crouched on the floor of the tub, knees drawn up, his head resting on his forearms, letting the spray run over him.

"Hot," Ray mumbles. "'M hot." Fraser realizes that only the cold water is running. Ray shivers beneath it.

Fraser helps Ray out of his wet clothes, helps him dry himself, all the while trying not to _look,_ not to let his hands linger over Ray's cold skin. He helps Ray change into a set of dry clothes, and gets him back into bed, but Ray asks, "Fraser, could you... my neck, it's. Ow."

Fraser kneels on the bed with him. "Muscles ache?"

"Yeah."

"Turn around," Fraser instructs, and then he puts his large, sturdy hands on the back of Ray's slender neck, and he begins to knead.

The back of Ray's neck. The soft point of his hairline narrowing down into the pale column of it. The gentle slope of Ray's neck into lean, tense shoulders. The low bumps of his vertebrae, the peach fuzz swirl, just there at the juncture of neck and shoulders, the tiny, pale hairs leading up. When Fraser first recognized his attraction to -- no, his desire -- for Ray, he managed to keep his thoughts, his feelings in their place -- mostly in their place, but then one fateful day in the midst of a homicide investigation he was blind-sided, stunned by the grace of the back of Ray's neck. He wanted to press his face against it, press his teeth against it, taste and inhale Ray's scent, just there, at the base of his beautiful neck. This, Fraser thinks as he grinds his thumbs into the knotted muscle of Ray's shoulders, was the beginning of his swift and terrible downfall.

Ray whispers in the dim light, "Fraser."

"Yes?"

"Did you bring your revolver?"

Fraser pictures the Smith & Wesson, cold, solid and loaded at the bottom of his knapsack. "Do I ever?"

"That is not what I asked you." Ray's voice is soft, like snow over ice.

"No," Fraser lies. "I did not bring my revolver."

Ray finally says, "Okay."

Fraser gently presses his face to the back of Ray's neck, and takes a long, slow breath, and does not weep.

 

He wakes from an all too brief sleep. He leaves Ray curled around his pillow, and Fraser gently tucks the covers about his shoulders. Ray mutters something he can't make out.

In the kitchen Fraser manages a welcome hot cup of tea, but yearns for the nutritious, caloric jolt of a good bit of pemmican. What he finds is canned fruit, something purported to be a "Tropical Assortment." Upon investigation he finds that the 'assorted' flavors of the bite-size chunks have blended together into an overly sweet concoction suspiciously unlike any fruit he's ever tasted, and utterly inedible. Diefenbaker disagrees, and slurps up the mess with enthusiasm.

Fraser adds a can of stew to Dief's meal, then lets him out for a stretch, perhaps to chase the odd rabbit, run the perimeter of the large lot, making sure no one is sneaking up on the house. Fraser has no reason to believe that anyone but D.C.I. Reickhart knows or cares where they are, but it gives Dief something to do.

Fraser steps out onto the porch that runs across the front of the little house, watches the afternoon sun gilding the summer grass. He rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, notices that his hands are shaking, though he can't for the life of him think why they should.

Some time near dark he's sitting at one end of the sofa, trying to read a chapter on administering saline I.V.'s, which is something he has reluctantly concluded might become necessary. He keeps getting to the bottom of page three and realizing that he has no idea what he's just read. Dief nudges at his knee, and he leans forward to rub the wolf's soft ears. Dief whuffles at him.

He's been listening to Ray's restless movements in the bedroom. Ray's discomfort is increasing, and Fraser rises to investigate, to see if he might be of any use at all. Within he finds that the bed linens have been shuffled sideways onto the floor, and Ray, slumped in the middle of the bed panting and shaking reminds Fraser of a picture he once saw in his Latin primer, of "The Dying Gaul."

"I can't do this, Fraser," Ray gasps out. He grimaces, a flash of teeth. "I can't do this."

Fraser has kept a small glass of water on the bureau, in anticipation of any moment that he can get some into his friend, and now he sits on the edge of the mattress and offers it to him. "Just a little," Fraser encourages, and when he helps Ray hold the glass steady in tremulous hands Ray doesn't fight him. "We'll see if it stays down," Fraser says.

"Jesus, my head is killing me," Ray confesses.

Fraser tells him, "You're badly dehydrated." He tries not to dwell on the misery in Ray's face, in the hollows of his cheeks, how dark his eyes have become. On why this is happening.

"Dehydrated. Like coffee, or those little packets of soup, just add water?"

Fraser helps him back into bed, pulls the linens into place around him. "Yes, like dried soup."

"I don't want to be dried soup," Ray decides.

"That's very sensible of you, Ray." He brushes the fingertips of one hand across Ray's forehead, and Ray closes his eyes.

Fraser lies down on the floor at the foot of the bed, and tries to sleep.

 

Dief paces the bedroom floor, whimpering sympathetically while Ray thrashes. His stomach has quit heaving, for which Fraser is endlessly grateful, but the sweats, and the shakes and the muscle cramps, and the incessant thrashing as he attempts vainly to alleviate _anything_ have pushed Ray to tears, to muttering breathlessly, "I can't I can't I can't," and finally begging, "Please don't make me do this, just put a bullet in me buddy, make it _stop,_ " at which point Fraser clambers into bed with him and wraps his arms and his legs around Ray until he is trapped, trembling and sodden in Fraser's panicked embrace.

Fraser murmurs thoughtlessly against the back of Ray's head, there below his ear. "It'll be all right. This won't last forever, you'll see, it'll be all right, you'll be okay baby, I won't let you go…"

"Hold me down," Ray begs, and Fraser tries to get closer, holds him hard, listening helplessly to the fevered litany, "Hold me down…"

 

Fraser blinks awake to the feel of the mattress dipping to his left. Ray crawls carefully over his legs, dragging a fallen pillow in one fist. Fraser focuses blearily on him. He's changed into a blue t-shirt, and fresh boxers. He smells of toothpaste and faintly of soap. His face is gaunt, weary, but he's moving under his own power, and that's certainly something.

"Hey," Fraser whispers. His voice is rough, as though he's hung over. He would move out of the way, but his body seems to have melted into the bed.

Ray makes a pile of pillows and settles into it with a small moan. "Dief's outside checking for ninjas," he says. He peers down at Fraser. "You look like shit." He grimaces. "That's not a criticism, just an observation."

"A concise appraisal, regardless," Fraser admits. Frankly, he feels run over. "You appear improved. How do you feel?"

"Like shit," Rays tells him matter-of-factly. "I think my head might not explode after all, though. Drank some h2o. Hadda pee." He smirks. "Satisfied?"

Fraser thinks, Ray is smiling. Fraser says, "Peeing is a good sign. It means your body contains more water than it needs."

"You are such a freak, that this fascinates you." Ray yawns hugely. "Still got the damn shakes. Can't seem to quit sweatin'." He rolls onto his back and rubs at bloodshot eyes. He leaves his hand draped over his face. Fraser watches his arm trembling, the bracelet of little metal beads dangling loose on his narrow wrist.

"Ray?" He shouldn't ask this. It's too soon.

"Mmm?"

"Why did you try to take your own life?"

Ray's eyebrows twitch upward beneath his hand. He shrugs. "Dunno."

"You must have had a reason."

"Tired, I guess. Musta lost my grip, somewhere along the line."

"Ray."

"Fraser."

"Ray."

"Jesus. Drop it."

"No."

"Okay, gimme time to come up with an answer you can handle, how about that?"

And Fraser thinks, that's enough. "That I can _handle?_ What the hell is that supposed to mean? After everything, after -- God, Ray, I've been interrogated by your... patron, Rob, then there was that idiot Becker, and then the warehouse…" He wonders if he will ever be able to reconcile the horror of watching Ray kill with the thrill of watching Ray _move,_ of seeing him as a creature entirely of instinct, stripped of thought, of hesitation, a completely honest animal. The duality of his own feelings enervates him if he thinks about it too much.

Ray rubs both hands over his face and turns, frowning. "Can we do the guilt thing when I don't feel like I been drug through the streets of Laredo?"

Fraser sighs. "I didn't intend to make you feel guilty."

"Yes you did. It's a thing that you do. You're off your game today, usually you're sneakier about it. Christ." He groans as though in pain and turns again, staring up at the ceiling. "Jesus H. Christ, can you imagine what that would have done to my mother?"

"We've been waiting for word of you for over nine months."

Ray glances sideways. "You been hangin' around the consulate all this time? I'd have thought you woulda gone back to the great white north, back when -- right about the time I skedaddled."

"No. Well, they offered me a transfer to Ottawa--"

"Promotion?"

"Possibly. But I did not, _do_ not wish to live in Ottawa. It's a very big city."

"Chicago is a very big city."

"I wasn't alone in waiting for you there, Ray."

Ray groans. "I suck."

"Ray," Fraser insists. "You're avoiding the question."

Ray grunts, and one long hand flails at him feebly. "Okay. Okay. Look, honest, I can't remember what did it, the whole…" He flails a little more, as if trying to gather his thoughts. "…thing, what tipped me over the edge, I just…"

"The drugs?"

"No… Yeah. But Hendrickson, I think. I think that was the big push."

"You and I fought," Fraser reminds quietly. He'd just as soon forget, but that would hardly be fair.

"Yeah." Ray admits. "That was the beginning, wasn't it? Then Hendrickson… Jason Hendrickson, he was hard to get close to. See, the thing is…"

Ray shifts, wriggles about until he can get a pillow beneath his knees. Fraser realizes that Ray's back is hurting him.

"I had to be there when stuff happened," Ray begins. "The sort of stuff we'd put a stop to if we saw it happening back home, but I had to stand there and watch when that stuff happened, like I was okay with it. I didn't have to do stuff -- I started out as a bar tender, for Chrissakes, but then he liked me, and I got into his circle, and I saw stuff… there was this guy…" His voice drops to a murmur, softly plaintive. "I saw that. Stood there and watched. But I didn't do it. I didn't do that."

Suddenly Ray chuckles bitterly, "Never been the kind to sleep with the boss, before."

The implication takes a moment to sink in, and then Fraser can't look at him. Rob was bad enough, but now Hendrickson? If he looks at Ray right now he will hold Ray down on the mattress whether he will or no, and start hunting for fingerprints on Ray's body. "Did he hurt you?"

"No. Not really." He swallows hard, his voice stressed and young. "Can I just not talk about that?"

Fraser nods. "Perhaps later."

"No, Fraser. Not later. Just _not._ "

Fraser gets up and sits at the edge of the bed. The room tilts a bit, and he blinks at the dizziness. "Ray," he persists, "you're going to need to work this through eventually." He sounds pompous even to himself.

When he turns to look back, Ray has slipped down from his heap of pillows and burrowed beneath the covers. Only the top of his head is visible, short blonde tufts going all directions. "Ray."

"Fuck you," Ray's outline says from beneath the blankets.

"Fuck everybody, apparently," Fraser mutters, and instantly regrets it. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"Yes you did mean it, you son of a bitch!"

Fraser wonders, riding a surge of self-loathing like a wave of acid, which number amongst his betrayals this would be. He turns and scoots further onto the bed, hovering over the lump of blankets that hides his friend. "Ray, I didn't mean to be angry at you! To take it out on you. I just…" Thinking of someone else, anyone else with their hands on Ray fills him with rage. But he can't tell Ray that. Can he? Now?

"I shouldn't have pried." Understatement, that. He snorts, it turns to a giggle, a weird, hard-edged sound, and he scrubs at one eyebrow. He strongly suspects he may be developing a hole in his bag of marbles. It's likely been a long time coming, he's simply been too busy to notice. "You were right. I couldn't handle the answer." His voice cracks on the last. "Please forgive me?"

"I think," Ray's muffled voice says, "It started to get bad when I let go of the wall. I don’t remember exactly how that happened, but I know I did it."

Fraser sits back, blinking and lost. "The wall? What wall?" When did they start discussing architecture?

Ray sits up cross-legged across from Fraser, the blankets puddling in his lap. "It's the key to the puzzle, the maze thing… the labyrinth," he explains. "It's the secret of the labyrinth, Fraser. If you keep one hand on the wall, no matter how many turns or dead ends you get to, the wall will eventually lead you out. When you're under cover you got to keep one hand on the wall, at all times. Deep down, you can't forget who you were when you started, or the jig's up.

But Hendrickson... Man, it was like if he could look me in the eyes long enough, he'd see the real me hiding down there. We were like evolution, y'know? Me and him. The lion and the antelope, and we kept circling around each other, him letting me close, but not sure if he should let me too close, me trying to get him to let me closer. Who'd be smarter? Who'd be faster? Neither of us sure who'd turn out to be the lion and who'd turn out to be the antelope."

Ray shakes his head, smiling ruefully. "Look at me here. I guess we know who was the antelope."

"No." The urge to reach across and take Ray's thin face between his hands is almost irresistible. "You brought him to justice. All those… things that you had to witness, he'll be made to pay for them. Inspector Reickhart had nothing but praise for how you handled your assignment."

His own sincerity sounds idiotic to him. As though having helped to put Jason Hendrickson behind bars means Ray might instantly forget all of the horrors he has seen, all of the dreadful things he has been forced to do in order to complete his mission. As though Ray will not continue to pay the price, for a very long time.

Fraser wants to ask Ray if he let Jason Hendrickson kiss him.

"Went in there and got my man, huh? Maybe you'd be good under cover after all." Ray is looking at him with that sharp, intuitive gaze that he ordinarily reserves for criminal suspects.

"What do you mean? I'm a terrible liar."

"No," Ray argues. "No, you just make people think you are."

"Ray, I'm tired. You're tired--"

"Anybody who can fake naïve the way you do is a very dangerous man," Ray says. His voice drops, low and even. "You are one of the most dangerous men I know, Constable Benton Fraser."

Fraser sits there with his mouth open, as though he's been slapped. Popped again when he can't shut the hell up, leave it to Ray. Then he laughs, harsh, humorless, end of the campfire trail. "God, Ray, do you think I do it for a lark? To amuse myself, to _mess_ with you? God in Heaven, Ray I lie because I am _terrified!_ "

"Yeah? Of what? Not jumping off buildings, or drowning, or burning cars, so what is it?"

What really makes Fraser angry, makes him feel foolish and helpless, is that Ray is looking at him the same way Rob looked at him, as though he already knows, and dragging the confession out of Fraser is merely a formality. Fine. Fine, then.

The words come out staccato, a sharp snarl pushed out through his teeth. "Of--of everyone! Of others' expectations of the man they assume I am. Of people who want things from me that I can not possibly give them. Of myself. Of wanting things I can't have, wanting things I shouldn't want, wishing things were different. Of you."

Something integral has unbuckled inside him and he's loose, shaking. He might also be crying, but he's too overwhelmed by his fear and his outrage to tell. "Mostly I am terrified of you, Ray, because I want you so fucking much, and you… You look past the uniform and the big hat and the choir boy manners, all the _representations of me,_ and you start _rummaging_ for the man beneath it all, and there is so much in me that is unworthy, so much darkness I don't want you to find!"

"I read the file," Ray tells him.

"What?" He can't keep track, can barely breathe. God, when, how far back down the labyrinth did he let go of the wall?

"You read my files, I read yours. The one time you let yourself have what you thought you wanted, you'd been wanting for so long, you wanted so hard, and she knew you so awfully well, that you were almost destroyed, you and Vecchio both. Getting shot in the back wasn't even the worst of it. She was a part of your own darkness, Fraser, and she went after your best friend."

Fraser can't find the words. They've deserted him, utterly; his shields of formality, of dissembling, of ingenuousness, and all the clever words he uses to construct them, they're gone, and he is exhausted, naked and unarmed.

He wails at Ray, "I watched you shoot yourself in the head! I walked away and left you--you standing there, when I knew you were trying to--to tell me something, you needed me to listen to you, and then you _shot yourself in the head!_ Jesus--!" His throat closes on the emotion and he can't speak, can't even see through this mysterious water in his eyes. He kneels there, stunned, gasping and shivering, until he feels Ray's hands on his face, on his neck, pulling him in, tangling the two of them together.

"You called me 'baby,'" Ray recalls gently. "That why you messed with me, Fraser? Wanting me and not thinking you could have me, that scare you? People try to control what scares 'em, and you wanting me scared you, so you tried to control us both, that it? Except it backfired a little bit, huh."

Fraser is trying to say, 'Oh God Ray, I am so sorry,' but he can't make the words, only press his face against the crook of Ray's neck, Ray's long fingers soothing through his hair, cradling the back of his skull.

"I shouldn't have run. I shoulda had the guts to stick around, but I ran. I am so sorry I put you through this, Ben!"

Fraser buries his face into the corner of Ray's jaw, near the spot where the Beretta's muzzle pressed against the skin. He clutches at Ray, feeling him ridiculously light weight in his arms.

"This," Ray declares, "this you can have, Ben. Me." He shifts a little, nuzzles against the side of Fraser's face. "You can hold on, Ben. I won't break."

Ray's ribs are sharp beneath the jersey, beneath Fraser's hands. He protests against Ray's throat, "But you did, Ray! I hurt you and you left--"

"Stop it," Ray admonishes. "Hey." He pulls back a little, makes Fraser look at him; at Ray's sweat-flattened hair, at the dark smudges around his eyes, at his haggard smile. At the fact that he is _still here._

Then Ray tugs up the edge of the sheet and wipes first at Fraser's tears and then his nose, and then he kisses him, soft and sweet, and all of the storm inside Fraser goes quiet, just like that.

He hiccups and mouths at the beard stubble around Ray's lips. "We've been living in your apartment since you left."

Ray's smile stretches into a grin. "Keeping it warm for me, huh?"

"Yeah."

"That's good," Ray says, and he kisses Fraser again. "That's a good idea."

 

\--#--


End file.
